Writing, writing and a bit of history, Plantagenets mainly

Tag Archives: Creative writing

The End

It’s been a long time since I worked on this short film script and saw it go into production. It was very a very surreal experience sitting in the gorgeously decadent, art deco venue, The Troxy, in London’s east end watching a clip of our film played as the nominations were read out.

There was so much talent at the award ceremony, including of course my fellow film makers – Director and Producer, Raj Pathak, from We Are Heroes Films, cinematographer, Louis Vella and special effects aficionado Nik Karma from N-FX. The two actresses also attended the ceremony; Shelley Draper (who provided an immensely compelling performance of the mother in the film) and Eva Nicholson who played her daughter. Director, Crash Taylor unfortunately couldn’t attend the event.

(My one regret is that we didn’t get pictures of the event – we all went up as a team to receive the award and the official photographs have never been released of all the winners. Note to the organisers – there’s a lot of PR each of the film awards winners would probably love to generate for the awards, so its a shame these haven’t been available!)

Of course for us this isn’t The End – but only the beginning of the end. With a feature length film script already written, a crew that’s raring to go all that’s left is to gather together more investment – I say ‘all that’s needed’ of course this is one of the trickiest elements of getting a film made. I’ve no doubt it will be another long wait…. but it will be worth it!

Na No Wri Mo, is a great excuse to get out there and just write – the aim, to churn out a novel, to hit word count targets. It’s a great movement, pulling writers, ex writers and new writers out of their malaise, smashing their writers block and fostering creativity.

But it’s not for everyone. You may not want to write a novel, it might be poetry or script writing that captures your mood. Or it might be that you’d prefer not to churn out X number of words every day, that you want to work on the quality of your work.

So, the lovely, supportive group that is Cafe Aphra, have started their own writing challenge for November. You can set the challenge yourself, knowing others are doing just the same. So, if you need a bit of support or want to declare you November writing goal, check in at Cafe Aphra.

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I’m delighted to welcome my second guest blogger of the month, Sue Moorcroft. Sue is an award winning romantic novelist (more details of her work below). Sue kindly agreed to write a piece on the importance of self promotion as a writer. Hope you enjoy, and remember feel free to comment!

Why am I writing this post?

Why will I write the next two blog posts I plan to write this morning, another guest blog plus an entry on my own?

And chat to people on Twitter and Facebook?

It’s because I love talking about myself …

Yes, but apart from that! It’s ‘promo’.

Promo is part of the life of every writer I know. We understand the need to keep our names visible and interest people in our books and the Internet has provided us with a massive global platform on which to do it. Wonderfully, the platform is interactive and conversational. Comments on blogposts, Facebook threads, conversations on Twitter, none of them are just ways of beating prospective readers over the head with constant ‘Buy my book! Buy my book!’ or ‘Love me! Love me!’ messages. Each is a valuable person-to-person connection.

I realise that some of the people who fall into conversation with me DO buy my books. I know, because they tell me. They come back and tell me that they enjoyed the book and ask me about future books. In conversation, they become comfortable with my voice or my sense of humour, we chat about the subjects I’m researching and they’re interested by what I’m going to make of the subject. I ask the Twitterverse what a hot hero might wear to a halloween party, and they tell me he should go as a devil in red lycra – they feel they have a stake in the book, and I get help that I genuinely want. The Twitterverse has also found me a US attorney, told me how to hack a website; Facebook has provided me with a host of heroes with spooky eyes and the name of a clear anti-freeze. (Which led to a fascinating conversation about whether I was planning a murder and whether cooking and eating them would be a good way to dispose of the body. Also whether barbecue sauce would be appropriate. But I won’t be putting that in a book.)

I feel privileged to be writing in an era when readers can click ‘contact me’ on my website, befriend me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter specifically to say, ‘I enjoyed your book’. (Or, ‘Here’s how to cook and eat a body …’)

So, yes, blogs, Twitter and Facebook are part of promo. But they’re not about courting readers – they’re about enjoying knowing them.

Sue Moorcroft writes romantic novels of dauntless heroines and irresistible heroes. Her last book, Love & Freedom, won the Best Romantic Read Award 2011 at the Festival of Romance and her next, Dream a Little Dream, published on 1 November 2012, is the one with the devil in lycra.